[[White Hat]] tells two children that Christopher Columbus knew the world was round, but that others believed it to be flat. However, this is a false narrative known as the {{w|Myth of the Flat Earth}}. Educated people in Columbus's time knew the world was round, and knew the approximate radius of the Earth. Columbus claimed that the distance to sail west from Europe to Asia was drastically lower than others believed, but {{w|Christopher Columbus#Geographical_considerations|he was wrong about this}}. Columbus and his crew probably would have died at sea, except that unexpected islands (the "West Indies") were fortuitously in the right place.

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[[White Hat]] tells two children that Christopher Columbus knew the world was round, but that others believed it to be flat. However, this is a false narrative known as the {{w|Myth of the Flat Earth}}. Educated people in Columbus's time knew the world was round, and knew the approximate radius of the Earth. Columbus claimed that the distance to sail west from Europe to Asia was drastically lower than others believed, but {{w|Christopher Columbus#Geographical_considerations|he was wrong about this}}. If another continent and the "{{w|West Indies}}" had not been fortuitously in the right place, Columbus and his crew probably would have died at sea.

As White Hat begins his explanation, Megan objects, though not explaining why. White Hat continues, so Megan interrupts, saying that Columbus went in a straight line as the world curved away, ending up in {{w|Valinor}} and the {{w|Undying Lands}}. Megan's story is an allusion to the {{w|Silmarillion}}, by {{w|J. R. R. Tolkien}}, set in the same world as {{w|The Lord of the Rings}} trilogy and {{w|The Hobbit}}. Specifically, she references {{w|Eärendil|Eärendil the Mariner}}, the only mortal sailor to reach the Undying Lands, home of the Valar, and later gifted with one of the eponymous {{w|Silmaril}}s. With this silmaril on his brow he might look like an Indian man wearing a [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maharaja_Sir_Sri_Krishnaraja_Wodiyar_1906_by_1906_K_Keshavayya.jpg turban]. In Megan's telling, Columbus ends up as a mythological {{w|constellation}}.

As White Hat begins his explanation, Megan objects, though not explaining why. White Hat continues, so Megan interrupts, saying that Columbus went in a straight line as the world curved away, ending up in {{w|Valinor}} and the {{w|Undying Lands}}. Megan's story is an allusion to the {{w|Silmarillion}}, by {{w|J. R. R. Tolkien}}, set in the same world as {{w|The Lord of the Rings}} trilogy and {{w|The Hobbit}}. Specifically, she references {{w|Eärendil|Eärendil the Mariner}}, the only mortal sailor to reach the Undying Lands, home of the Valar, and later gifted with one of the eponymous {{w|Silmaril}}s. With this silmaril on his brow he might look like an Indian man wearing a [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maharaja_Sir_Sri_Krishnaraja_Wodiyar_1906_by_1906_K_Keshavayya.jpg turban]. In Megan's telling, Columbus ends up as a mythological {{w|constellation}}.

Revision as of 12:40, 24 August 2013

Title text: And thus was smallpox introduced into the previously Undying Lands.

Explanation

White Hat tells two children that Christopher Columbus knew the world was round, but that others believed it to be flat. However, this is a false narrative known as the Myth of the Flat Earth. Educated people in Columbus's time knew the world was round, and knew the approximate radius of the Earth. Columbus claimed that the distance to sail west from Europe to Asia was drastically lower than others believed, but he was wrong about this. If another continent and the "West Indies" had not been fortuitously in the right place, Columbus and his crew probably would have died at sea.

As White Hat begins his explanation, Megan objects, though not explaining why. White Hat continues, so Megan interrupts, saying that Columbus went in a straight line as the world curved away, ending up in Valinor and the Undying Lands. Megan's story is an allusion to the Silmarillion, by J. R. R. Tolkien, set in the same world as The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit. Specifically, she references Eärendil the Mariner, the only mortal sailor to reach the Undying Lands, home of the Valar, and later gifted with one of the eponymous Silmarils. With this silmaril on his brow he might look like an Indian man wearing a turban. In Megan's telling, Columbus ends up as a mythological constellation.

The joke is that when White Hat tells her to stop making up the story, Megan pointedly replies "You first", indicating that she originally complained about White Hat's retelling of the Columbus story because his account didn't really happen, and so he was also "making things up". Megan's fantasy tale was then delivered to make a point.

Discussion

Megan's version of the story is one big reference to the Silmarillion, in case you're wondering. 100.40.49.22 06:00, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

I fail to see how the fact scholars and other educated people knew the Earth is round means he couldn't have difficulty getting sponsorship because of that. He wasn't asking scholars for sponsorship, did he? :-) Actually, according to wikipedia, "Columbus presented his plans to Queen Isabella, who, in turn, referred it to a committee" ... -- Hkmaly (talk) 09:14, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Because it wasn't just scholars - everyone knew that the world was a sphere. Sailors, for example, took the monumental task of noticing that when objects appeared in the distance, they seemed to "rise up" over the horizon (hence the phrase). For that to happen, the sea (and by extension the rest of the world) had to be curved.
109.76.209.186 12:08, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Farmers were famous for believing the world was flat, but it might as well just be city prejudice or jokes on farmers behalf. They would anyway be in the worst position to know any better. 62.220.2.194 12:30, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

I was trying to make a joke. According to wikipedia again, it is recorded that the committee denied the request because of distance to Asia, therefore shown much more intelligence that committees tend to have on average. Still, he asked for sponsorship multiple people, which might include some who believed earth is flat. -- Hkmaly (talk) 11:07, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Looking at the moon and at the earth's shadow during a lunar eclipse would probably make many realize the earth is round. Ghaller825 (talk) 12:45, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Unless "round" as in "circular", rather than "spherical". A disc-like Earth could give the same effect. A non-tidally-locked moon would have been an interesting thing for early understanding of the universe, as it would have shown a clearly spherical ball rotating and let the layperson imagine sphericality under their own feet a lot easier in their own childhood, thus flat-earthing would have been culturally invalid, not just lazy/unthinking. Whether or not farmers 'knew'/cared/were-told-by-the-church that the world was flat isn't really relevent on the scale of farming where you need to worry more about localised hills on your land than global curvature on its actual order of magnitude. Of course, in the absence of any other clues you tend to think of everything as flat as your (crudely worked) kitchen tabletop by default. 178.104.103.140 16:16, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure what people knew and what they believed in earlier times. For example: M-Theory says that the space we live in has 11 dimensions. Assuming this is correct, what will people in 500 years say about us? Did we know it or did we not? Could we have expected what will hit us in a couple of years from out of one of the dimensions that we do not visually perceive?
To apply this to the quesion of whether they knew that the world was round: There is a story about Magellan (who certainly believed that the world was round because he tried to sail around it): He tried to measure the depth of the ocean with a 700m long rope. When the rope failed to reach the bottom, he concluded that the ocean was infinitely deep. Now how can a round object with a finite perimeter have and infinite radius? (I realize that wikipedia does not give any sources for the story and its origin is somewhat obscure, someone translated the story from the German wikipedia in July 2011; in the German wikipedia it had first appeared in 2006, but the story was around on German language websites since at least 2000; I have no idea where it originally comes from, but it would be interesting to have a look at Magellan's ship's log if it had such a thing.)
Y4cy (talk) 13:41, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

You suppose that the round earth is imbedded in flat 3-dimensional space. If it were’nt, you could easily have infinitely deep oceans. Maybe Magellan was way ahead of his time by thinking in non-Euclidean categories.

(Explanation for non-mathematicians: Draw a circle – it surely has a finite radius, but if you measure the depth perpendicular to the sheet of paper, you could go infinitely deep. Now apply this to a round sphere and measure perpendicular to the 3D space you put it in.)

Your example fails. Magellan sailed in ship with keel pointing in the direction of the depth he tried to measure. His success depended on the fact that earth is round IN THAT DIMENSION. Sure, there are geometries where the earth can be round in that dimension AND ocean would still be infinite, but, as you correctly mentioned, they would be non-euclidean, while your example with sheet of paper is (almost) euclidean. Also, dimension which would make possible to measure infinite distances is Brane cosmology - M-Theory would work perfectly well even in case all of those "extra" dimensions would be extremely small. -- Hkmaly (talk) 11:07, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Valar, Maiar, and Elves are all disease-immune. Valar and Maiar can actually shed their physical bodies entirely. 108.162.221.40 13:39, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

While the main inhabitants of the Undying Lands are undying in their own right, it may be that they also confer immortality. As I recall, the Numenorean invasion was based upon that belief. Magic9mushroom (talk) 10:38, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

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